Anglers across the Louisiana coast are watching the weather and counting the days until the big spawning speckled trout show up in the exterior bays, crashing topwater lures and making life miserable for the local mullet population.

Marc Misuraca likes spring fishing along the coast as well, but the late-spring and summer seasons mean something else to the Metairie resident -- crabbing. He loves the low-stress, easy hauls the sport offers in Louisiana's ultra-fertile marshes. Even when winds and weather slow the fishing down, the crabs are always agreeable.

"I start looking when the water temperature gets to 75 degrees," he said. "When it gets to 80 degrees, that's when things really get rolling. It's usually sometime in May, right around the opening of shrimp season."

Crabbing is about as low-tech as you can get, and for crabbers like Misuraca, that's part of the attraction. All you really need are some nets and chicken necks and a means to access crabby areas. High-dollar bay boats work OK for crabbing, but nothing's better than an aluminum flat that sits low to the water with little freeboard.

For a recreational crabber, the most important element is to locate an area that's holding crabs. Misuraca looks for high-current areas holding 8 to 10 feet of water.

"I really want moving water -- some kind of tide," he said. "When the tide stops falling or rising, they really slack off, but then you get your best bite on the front end of the rise or fall."

Although nearby deep water and strong current are crucial, the crabs won't necessarily be in that deep water, Misuraca said.

"You can catch a bunch in 3 to 4 feet of water," he said. "I move the nets around. If (the crabs) are not in the middle of the canal, I'll move them to the sides into the shallower water."

Early in the season, Misuraca has particularly good success in inland areas like the Parish Line Canal, called the Duncan Canal on some maps, in western Lake Pontchartrain.

"It's a bunch of kites out there, but you can fill the boat up in no time," he said.

"Kite" is the colloquial term for large crabs that have thin shells and lack a lot of meat.

Those crabs that Misuraca finds in the Parish Line Canal and other inland areas are almost always males and immature females. There's a reason for that, according to Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries biologist Marty Bourgeois.

"Males tend to remain in brackish to fresh water," he said. "In general, there is a spring up-estuary migration of large juveniles and adult males."

That crab population is joined by small juveniles that grew up in the marshes and are looking to eat, grow and mature.

The mature females behave quite differently, Bourgeois said. They spend the cold winter months offshore and then move into the lower coast in the late-spring and summer. After bumping into the males and taking care of some crabby business, the mature, gravid females begin their offshore migration in the fall.

Crabbers who exclusively want fat females always do better in higher-salinity waters, but Misuraca isn't that picky. He's content with the large males and immature females he finds in the easy-to-reach upper estuaries.

He baits with chicken necks, and varies the number of nets he uses according to the pace of the action.

"If they're biting really well, I'll just run a dozen (nets), but if it's a little slow, I'll run two dozen," he said.

His first run will tell him if he's on hot action, or if he needs to make an adjustment.

"Right when I first get started, I'll run my nets to see how they're biting," he said. "If there are crabs in every net, I'll just keep rolling. I'll go from the end right back to the beginning.

"If I catch only four or five (on the first run), I'll let them sit a couple of minutes."

Misuraca said there are many days he could sink the boat with crabs, but he limits himself to a hamper. Any more than that, he said, is overkill. He may continue to run his nets after reaching his self-imposed hamper limit, but he'll cull out the small crabs and replace them with any bigger ones he catches.

Misuraca, like other recreational crabbers, is curious to find out what impact this year's extended winter has had on the crab stocks. But because of the pending BP litigation, Bourgeois wasn't allowed to offer a guess.

"We prefer not to speculate about the potential impacts an extended winter may have on crab stocks," he said.

But he did say there are number of factors that influence crab mortality and population.

"Blue crabs enter the Gulf estuaries as megalopae with the first molt to the crab stage taking place in nearshore Gulf waters," he said. "Wind- and tidal-driven tides and current play a key role in transport into estuaries.

So crabbers will just have to find out on their own. They likely won't have to wait long. The water temperature at Lake Pontchartrain's West End was 72.7 degrees Tuesday, which is getting really close to the number that inspires Misuraca to make his first run of the season.

The high angle of the May sun will continue to drive up water temperatures, pushing the region quickly into the hottest crabbing months of the year, Bourgeois said.

"June and July historically are the top two (commercial) landing months of the year, and it's also the peak time of year for recreational crabbers fishing and dipping crabs along barrier-island shorelines," he said.